Senate Majority Leader Frist’s proposal to offer consumers $100 rebates for high gasoline prices is “dead,” according to several House and Senate leaders.

The House majority leader, John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, said the idea of a $100 rebate is “insulting” to consumers. The Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, said the plan was “dead before it was offered.”

Dr. Frist unveiled the $100 proposal last week as part of an eight-point plan to tackle high gasoline prices. The Republican legislation would also allow drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, repeal tax incentives for big oil companies, encourage additional refinery capacity and authorize the secretary of transportation to change fuel economy rules for passenger cars.

A spokeswoman for Dr. Frist said the legislation proposed last week may be broken into pieces, rather than move through Congress as one large package.

Asked whether Dr. Frist will continue to press the notion of the rebate, his spokeswoman, Amy Call, said Republican leaders will consider what portions of their proposal to advance in coming weeks.

“We may do the whole package, or parts of it,” Ms. Call said. “We’ll see what we can get done.”

Dr. Frist said yesterday he would drop an accounting change from his proposal that opponents said was a backdoor windfall profits tax that would cost billions of dollars. Senator Schumer said the rebate died when the accounting change was pulled from the package.

Senator Santorum, a Republican of Pennsylvania, who appeared alongside Dr. Frist to unveil the Republican proposal, told reporters the rebate was still an option, and it would be funded by repealing tax incentives for oil companies, including incentives to drill in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

The rebate would be sent by the end of August to any individual taxpayer making less than $125,000 a year.

“They’re trying to satisfy voters with a $100 rebate,” Mr. Boehner told reporters. “That is insulting.”

“They should do nothing,” the senior vice president for Stanford Washington Research Group, Christine Tezak, said. “The good policy response is to do nothing, but you can’t do that as a policymaker if your constituency is screaming.”

Ms. Tezak said that rosy economic numbers prove America can handle higher energy costs. “If you look at the economic data, we can handle it,” she said.

Mr. Boehner said he also rejects a portion of the Senate Republican proposal that would allow the secretary of transportation to have authority to set fuel-economy standards for cars. The House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing tomorrow on legislation that would, as requested by the White House, clarify that the department has that authority, which has traditionally rested with Congress.

“I’m a believer that American car manufacturers and other manufacturers are making cars that consumers want,” Mr. Boehner said. The high gas prices might lead consumers on their own to buy cars with better mileage, but it should be left to them, he said.

“The market can handle this much better than some kind of government regulation,” Mr. Boehner said.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, an Illinois Republican, said the $100 rebate was done “because they think it’s a good way to entice the American people” to win support for oil drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Senator Sessions, a Republican of Alabama, said he questions whether the $100 rebate has enough support, and said he probably won’t back it.

“I’m not convinced that’s the best use of tax dollars,” Mr. Sessions said. “I think the fundamental question is, what can we do to bring down the price of gas over the long term?”

The chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Pete Domenici, who was also at the press conference to unveil the rebate proposal, said the $100 rebate was not his idea, and he doesn’t know who initially proposed it.

“It wasn’t discussed in my presence,” the New Mexico Republican said.

“I don’t think it was a very good idea,” Senator Martinez, a Republican of Florida, said. “If it’s alive, it has a very weak pulse.”